Professors Larry Speck and Richard Cleary will be signing copies of their new book, The Campus Guide: The University of Texas at Austin, at a reception on Thursday, November 10, from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m., in Gabriel’s Cafe at the AT&T Executive Education and Conference Center.

The Lady Bird Lake Hike and Bike Trail Restroom by Miró Rivera Architects—Professor Juan Miró, Miguel Rivera, and Rosa Rivera, principals—has won national recognition in the 2011 Innovative Design in Engineering and Architecture with Structural Steel awards program (IDEAS2), presented annually by the American Institute of Steel Construction. This is the thirteenth award the restroom has received, and it has been featured in seventeen publications.

Assistant Professor Matt Fajkus was selected as a Fellow of the  Next Generation Project Texas, as part of the Robert S. Strauss Center for International Security and Law, established to bring fresh ideas to the problems facing the world.

Assistant Professor Fernando Lara presented a lecture, “Vila Viva Favela Redesign, Belo Horizonte, Brazil,” at Parsons The New School for Design on November 2. He discussed participatory budgeting and recent projects in the Brazilian favelas. Parsons’ Design and Urban Practice Colloquium is a public lecture series on alternative and innovative forms of design and urban practice.

Dean Fritz Steiner was a featured guest in Houston Tomorrow’s Distinguished Speaker Series on Wednesday, November 3. Steiner discussed his latest book, Design for a Vulnerable Planet, and his ideas for a sustainable future based on new regionalism, a theory of design,  which holds that structure and landscape should be inspired by the surrounding ecosystem.